Episode 1.4
"The transmitter's inside the Dodo...and the Dodo's with Abby! You idiots! You've turned her into bait!" Stephan explains the situation to Connor. Synopsis A flock of Dodos arrive in the 21st Century bearing a lethal problem: they are carrying a deadly and infectious parasite. When Connor's friends, Duncan and Tom take one home, all hell breaks loose... Plot Helen Cutter, now in custody at the Home Office, is refusing to co-operate. She is the only one who understands how the anomalies work, but for now she's keeping her secrets safe. Besides, they have more pressing issues to deal with – a new anomaly has opened in a council flat, and apparently a creature's on the loose. Luckily, when the team go to investigate, they discover no anomaly, and the creature is only a (relatively) harmless, modern-day python. Lester and Claudia conclude that Helen knows more than she's saying, but she refuses to speak to all except one person: Nick. When Cutter arrives at the Home Office, Helen initially accuses him of setting her up, before abruptly changing tact, warning Cutter that unless the team act, "a pride of sabre-toothed killers will be rampaging through Central London!". Though Lester and Claudia suspect a trap, Cutter believes his wife is being sincere. Deciding to give her the benefit of the doubt, they set off to investigate. Connor, meanwhile, having been kicked out of his flat, moves in with Abby, But this sparks off a chain of events. Connor's secret life, full of late night excursions, is really starting to bug his old friends Tom and Duncan, who assume he must be up to something. They set out on a mission to discover what's going on: they plant a tracking device on his bag and follow him when he goes with the team to investigate the anomaly. Helen leads the team to the kitchens of a deserted football stadium, where they find an anomaly, but no sabre-toothed cats...yet. As the team and soldiers try to get rid of anything that might lure the creatures through, Helen takes advantage of the distraction and makes good her escape. Captain Tom Ryan and Stephen give chase, only to find themselves on a grassy plain, surrounded by at least a dozen anomalies. With no way of knowing where Helen's gone, they have to go back without her. Suddenly, the anomaly expands and animal sounds ring out. Ryan and his soldiers stand ready to shoot anything that emerges, but the creatures that come through aren't as terrifying as they feared: a flock of curious, chirping Dodos. As the team round up the birds, one escapes out of the stadium, after swallowing the tracking device on Connor's bag. Still following the device, Tom and Duncan find and capture the bird. The team, meanwhile, return all the dodos through the anomaly, save for one, which has mysteriously died. Back at the Home Office, Cutter, Abby and Stephen are about to perform an autopsy on the dodo, when a strange, worm-like creature slithers out of its beak and tries to attack Abby: fortunately, Stephen kills it before it reaches her. After some study, the team call in Lester and let him know the creature is a highly dangerous cestoid parasite that destroys its host's body, keeping them alive just long enough to reproduce itself: once that is achieved, parasite and host die together. Back at Tom and Duncan's flat, the Dodo becomes aggressive after a short time and attacks Tom, biting him. Unknown to them, Tom is now infected with the parasite, becoming more and more agressive and unbalanced. Worried about his friend, Duncan calls Connor, who in turn lets the team know what's happened. The team search the pair's flat and find the dodo's body (Claudia takes the moment to threaten Duncan with charges of stealing Government property), but there is no sign of Tom. Seeing a broken lightbulb by the dodo's body, Cutter realises that the parasite is light-sensitive and wherever Tom is, he'll be trying to stay in the dark. They also warn Lester that they have to find Tom before he infects anyone else and they have a pandemic on their hands. Lester agrees, though remarking that this whole situation is one more part of Helen's 'twisted plan'. Cutter tries to defend his wife, claiming the infected dodos were purely coincidental, but no-one believes him. Matters are not helped when the team discover Tom has bitten a doctor at a hospital where he tried to get medical treatment. Knowing that the only way to find him is after the alarm is raised when he attacks again (which Cutter argues will take some time as Tom's willpower will be fighting the parasite's influence) and realising that they need to understand more about what Tom is thinking, Cutter and Stephen quiz Connor and Duncan, who explains that Tom will likely be tracking the device that they used to find the dodo. Stephen, realising the device is with the dodo, works out that Tom will be after it, and that Abby-who's been left with the body- is now in mortal danger. Tom breaks into Cutter's office, where Abby is conducting an autopsy on the dodo. Though he doesn't want to hurt her, his desire for answers and the parasite's influence cause him to become more and more aggressive. Desperate to stop him infecting her, Abby takes Tom to the stadium to show him the anomaly. However, the anomaly has shut and a furious Tom comes to believe Abby has tricked him. Now utterly berserk from the parasite's influence, Tom attacks Abby, chasing her through the stadium and catching her as she runs onto the pitch. Just before he can bite her, the team arrive and take aim. Though Stephen, Ryan and Claudia are prepared to kill Tom, Connor begs for the chance to appeal to his old friend and Cutter allows him. Connor, by making numerous references to Star Wars and playing along with Tom's conspiracy theory of mind control (which he had used to explain the parasite's influence), convinces Tom to let go of Abby. Fighting off the parasite's influence to the last, Tom overcomes the urge to attack his friend, and dies peacefully in Connor's arms. A grief-stricken Connor then tries to resign from the team, claiming that Tom would still be alive if he wasn't involved, but Cutter, in a display of remarkable compassion, tells Connor "There's a handful of people in the whole world who know exactly what we're dealing with and you're one of them. He would have loved it, it would have made his day. So you can't back out now". Cutter then consoles an upset Connor, who agrees to stay. Cast * Nick Cutter — Douglas Henshall * Abby Maitland — Hannah Spearritt * Stephen Hart — James Murray * Connor Temple — Andrew-Lee Potts * Claudia Brown — Lucy Brown * Helen Cutter — Juliet Aubrey * James Lester — Ben Miller * Captain Tom Ryan — Mark Wakeling * Tom — Jake Curran * Duncan — James Bradshaw * Mrs Davis — Manjeet Mann * Small Boy — Amaar Sardharwalla * Doctor — Billy Carter Ratings 5.6 million (24%) Errors *Helen stated she saw a Utahraptor in the Jurassic, but Utahraptors were only alive during the Cretaceous. **''It could have come through an anomaly'' or she was just trying to insult him * The Dodos were depicted as fat and clumsy, as those bought to by sailors for zoos were due to overfeeding in captivity; real wild dodos would have been somewhat slimmer than shown in the show. **''No one ever said or found out where the dodos came from as no one travelled through the anomaly. The anomaly could well have formed where the dodos were held when they were in captivity.'' (then how would they have a parasite? they would have either passed it on or died.) the dodos could have just resently put in too captivity while holding the parasite. * The Dodo is said to have a relationship with a tree called the Ambalacoque whereas as in real life the Dodo had a relationship with the Tambalacoque tree, Sideroxylon grandiflorum. Appearances Characters * Nick Cutter * Abby Maitland * Stephen Hart * Connor Temple * Claudia Brown * Helen Cutter * James Lester * Tom Ryan * Tom * Duncan * Mrs Davis * Small Boy * Doctor Locations * Home Office * Hospital * Matchroom Stadium * Abby's Flat * Tom and Duncan's Flat Creatures *Coelurosauravus *Parasite *Dodo *Gorgonopsid (mentioned) *Utahraptor (mentioned) Organisations *Home Office Reviews and Ratings Please use this space to write any comments or reviews about this episode. Add your rating out of ten as well. Thanks! *This episode was pretty creepy and cool, so I give it 8/10. ZEM talk to me! 16:37, September 12, 2009 (UTC) External link * Episode Guide on itv.com http://www.itv.com/Drama/cult/Primeval/default.html 1.4, Episode